I Am Regina by Sally M. Keehn

Author:Sally M. Keehn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group

CHAPTER Fourteen

Our hut smells of stale sweat. Even the sweet grass I hung from the rafters cannot mask the sour scent. The fire smolders, giving little light. Outside the drums still beat as the war dance goes on. I kneel beside my bed and feel beneath it for the basket in which I store my deerskin cloak.

Beside me, Tummaa growls. I reach out to calm him and feel the hackles rise along his back. Something is not right in here. The air feels thick with body heat. Someone moves in the shadows behind me.

“Tiger Claw!” I gasp when I see his face, not a man’s face, but an eagle’s, all beak and eyes. His dark-rimmed eyes stare into mine.

“I ... I came for my cloak,” I tell him as I quickly stand. I sense he has been drinking. His eyes are unfocused, as if he sees, but does not see. He is unsteady on his feet.

“Tskinnak.” Tiger Claw slurs my name. He throws his arm around my shoulders. I try to push him off, but he leans on me and traps me with his weight. His breath stinks of rum. Tummaa cowers beside me, whining.

“Dupré. Meet my white squaw,” Tiger Claw says.

“I am not your white squaw,” I say, searching frantically through the dark and smokey air for Dupré. I would hate to have him creep up on my back.

Dupré emerges from the shadowy comer near my bed. His face is narrow, like a ferret’s. His thin dark beard does not hide the smirk I see on his face. “So this is the squaw you captured last fall.” Dupré eyes me, up and down. “Your hunting was good.”

“Let me go.” I struggle against Tiger Claw, desperate to escape from these two men. They have been drinking in our hut. They must have been plotting war, sitting on my bed. I hate them. Hate. the touch of Tiger Claw’s bared chest against the new clothes Nonschetto made for me.

“This white squaw needs taming,” Dupré says.

“I am not a white squaw!” I say, hating the words “white squaw.” They demean me.

“Tskinnak is tame. She does what I say.” Tiger Claw squeezes my shoulder warning me to be silent.

“Then I leave you to your pleasure,” Dupré says. “Tomorrow we talk more.” Wind whips into the hut as he opens the door flap. The fire’s hot coals blaze and sputter. The door flap closes and they die down.

I feel my heart beat, loud in my chest. “Let me go.”

“Tskinnak.” Tiger Claw throws his other arm around my shoulders and he hugs me. The other times when he was drinking, he only touched me with his eyes, never with his hands. But Woelfin was nearby then. I must get out of here.

I throw my weight against Tiger Claw. I push as hard as I can and he stumbles backward I slip out of his arms and back away, slowly, feeling my way around the fire toward the door. Tummaa growls and presses his body against my legs.

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